Page 27 of Fated Wolf's Redemption

Neither of us speak. There’s no need. Something’s different now. The argument, the chase, the fire—it burned through whatever flimsy denial we’d been clinging to. But that doesn’t mean either of us is ready to say it aloud.

Her fingers draw slow circles over my stomach. “That thing we felt in the woods… it wasn’t just adrenaline.”

I nod. “I know.”

“And this…” She hesitates. “This changes nothing.”

I glance down at her. “Only if you fight it.”

She doesn’t reply, but the way she curls into me says more than words ever could.

I kiss the top of her head, then ease away, pulling my jeans back on and reaching for the duffel. “I want to check inside to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

I move back to the cabin and enter. Sophia follows. The scent of blood still lingers, sharp and acidic. I need to clear my head before the reality of what we found here slips away.

That’s when I see it… tucked into the corner of the hearth, barely visible beneath a collapsed floorboard, something glints. I move the broken slats aside and pull it free—a photograph, crumpled but intact.

The image stops my breath. It’s not a pack photo. Not wolves. It’s human—five people, dressed in sterile white. Scientists. One of them stands out. A man in a lab coat, tall, pale, with narrow eyes and a familiar scowl. He doesn’t belong in this forest. He doesn’t belong in any world I know.

But he matches the description of someone Isabella told me about once. A name that showed up in Arthur’s stolen records, in half-burned pages among Arthur’s notes. Dr. Everett Cain.

And behind him, barely visible through the glass of what looks like a reinforced holding cell, is an enormous wolf, but somewhat misshapen, twisted. Watching.

Sophia kneels beside me, eyes locking onto the image.

“But where did they come from?” she whispers.

“Unknown, but it looks like they’re mutating wolves—creating some type of superior species.”

She glances at the symbols on the wall.

“What?” I ask, my jaw set.

“That fits with what we found—the symbols, but what if the wolves they’re using aren’t from this plane of existence?”

“Huh? Explain.”

“There are legends about wolves and other shifters that were pushed into a pocket of the world that lies beneath the surface.Tales about miners digging too deep, about dragons pushing something from our world…”

“Fairytales…”

“To you, maybe. But to Windriders? Not so much. We feel like the earth is becoming poisoned, or something is bleeding into our world, and that it needs healing... This ‘poison’... could be linked to the declining birthrates.”

“Do you believe it?” I ask.

“Do you have a better explanation?”

I don’t.

Sophia’s eyes meet mine, and I see it there—whatever the Crimson Claw is or isn’t, it’s not of this world, and somebody is trying to use that to capitalize on it, but to what end?

CHAPTER 8

SOPHIA

We enter the general meeting room of the Nightshade Pack as Elder Blackwood’s voice cuts through the lodge’s great hall like a blade made of bureaucracy and barely concealed disdain.

“The Windriders have overstepped,” he says, standing tall in his pristine charcoal jacket, every silver hair in place, eyes like frost. “Not just with Nightshade. They’ve involved themselves with Ironclaw affairs.” Then, realizing Lucas and I have joined them, he points a bony finger at me and continues, “And I hear rumors you’ve been poking around in the territories of several other packs that fall under our governance as well. This is not a matter that the Windriders should involve themselves in. You are outcasts.”

---